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Two Dancing Serpents
‘The world drowned beneath a sea of smoke, the world that had bore all else. This world, our world. The only place a Time Lord could ever call home, but not anymore. She was burning. Burning all over. She was about to die, and just after she had reached very pinnacle of existence. How tragically ironic, became my line of thought, how tragically paradoxical. I didn’t know how it came to happen, nor was I about to stick around to find out. The Daleks, I presumed, who else? Sure, it was unexpected, but out of all of the universe’s horrors...It was damn clear. The Time War had hit home, and on that night of all nights. I’ve often wondered whether or not the attack on Gallifrey was what ultimately released me from my captors, but I doubt it. Some other foul play was at work. The Chosen were the ones responsible, of course. It’s what they’re best at. Power-mad, that lot. Fifty years they kept me locked up. For the lucky human, that’s half a lifetime...For me, it’s not even a quarter. It still hurt though. Still does. The world was ending, and everyone was running. The Temple of Time stood abandoned as the fires poured down across the silver valleys. The night was as orange as the day should have been I dimly recall, all else was simply burnt up by then. I heard the screaming on the final evening, and crawled out of my cell. Gallifrey shook the temple. I didn’t blame her. She must have been far more frightened than any of us, and she didn’t want to be ditched as just another burned out battleground. Would I have stayed? Sure, if I was less self-preserving. She was doomed, as dramatic as that sounds, and I was finally out of that dark chamber for the first time in five decades. Gallifrey, the Time Lords, the Daleks and everyone else were all about to become toast, but me? I had other plans, and death wasn’t at the end of any of them. I hurled myself through the chapel doors and crashed down the tall flight of steps, slamming from one step and down another until I finally rolled into mud. The blaze sniggered at my escape formula, and we both knew that my muscles were far too weak to do anything else. One destiny may have unleashed the flames right then, but fortune held up its finger and gave a different order. As blood swamped the ruins of my first face, I pushed it up and stared with the only eye I had left in utter...bewilderment. There was something looking down at me, something strange, rogue and merciful, and in a dark and twisted way, it was quite beautiful. It froze time, kept the fires at bay. I pulled myself forward, and again, and again, until a ramp lowered with a deep mechanical whimper and heaved me aboard, before she resealed herself and trembled with expectation for the first time. I was inside, I was safe. I didn’t know whether or not I regenerated then or after, but her engines coiled up like two dancing serpents and, as an historic detonation echoed from one corner of the universe to the other – we flew. We rode the shockwave to the edge of Kasterborous, and then I was free. We were free.’ - Admiral Mappalazarou Date Unknown Category:Fan Fiction Category:Mappalazarou